Growing Up

“That would be a good life experience,” was the sentence that started it all. As a kid when you’re just starting school your parents argued—to your knowledge or not—whether or not to send you to and from school on the bus. Crowded with kids, other kids you don’t know; other older kids you don’t know. Mom says she wants to dive her baby into school. But dad says, “It would be a good life experience.”  It’s as though being surrounded by the unfamiliar, by new situations, by different people is somehow supposed to trigger a life changing experience that will groom you for the better. But as a kid you never see it that way.

My father always made sure that I was pushed in the direction of “life experiences,” the good and the bad. These included, but are not limited to: Flying across the country by myself, living on Indian Reservations, exploring the forest of the west coast, swimming with sea turtles in the Caribbean, attending school in the southern land of sweet tea and boiled peanuts.  Attending after-school programs, academic programs, science fairs, career fairs, applying for jobs I never thought I would get.  These “experiences” were plainly and simply my life.  I thought the phrase, “that would be a good life experience,” was limited to adults, those who had experienced life in all its glory. 

I remember the first time I used that phrase. I was referring to my younger brother and his pending decision on whether or not to go to Guatemala for the summer. It was a winter afternoon, I was home for Christmas break, curled on the couch with a cup of tea and nonchalantly I turn to him and said, “Well, it would be a good life experience.” Later, within the next few days, Jessica and I met at our local coffee shop and bewildered I confessed that I used the strictly adults only phrase. Did that mean I was finally growing up?

Over the course of the next year I found myself using that phrase more loosely. I found myself using a wallet and discussing the job market and receiving W-2 forms in the mail and making pots of coffee before heading to class and slowly all the talk about my future melted into actions. All those “experiences” faded into real life. I’m finding myself standing in the gaping mouth of reality, and my small world of experiences is becoming my every day. And still, I am open and ready for all new experiences. It isn’t that adults have lived out every experience, they just know that one day you’re going to be served the world and you, we all, need to start with baby bites.

Hawley Out.